Yes, sir.
About all the issues we discussed regarding Carolinas place
All done. Except that I also took the initiative of hiring a housesitter-actually, a concierge service-because I barely got to her place before there were people knocking and pounding and calling. She has some frantic relatives.
Ill bet she does. Excellent judgment on getting the concierge service on board.
Her sister, particularly, I believe, expected to be let in. Said Carolina had some things that were hers that she was supposed to get-
Right. Maguire didnt snort. He just thought about it. If her family has any type of medical financial need, take care of it. Or call me. Otherwise nothing gets removed from her place except for old food in her refrigerator. Her bills and personal business-any crises there?
No. I canceled a dentist appointment for next week. And she has a hair appointment next Thursday.
Hair. For the first time Maguire looked up, alarmed. You know how women are about hair.
Not exactly, sir.
Nothing puts women in a bad mood faster than a bad-hair day. I dont even know what a bad-hair day is, exactly, but if thats a source of stress, we have to fix it.
How, sir? Henry asked.
Damned if I know. Maguire dived into the next stack of files. Any men calling her? he asked casually.
Yes, sir, I told you-
I mean besides dentists and drugstores and insurance salesmen. The other kind of men. Boyfriends. Relationships.
I dont think so. Abruptly Henry tugged on an ear. Mr. Cochran, I dont recall you asking me to notice or collect information on anything regarding boyfriends. I wasnt looking for that. It never crossed my mind that you wanted me to.
I didnt. And of course I didnt ask you. Its none of my business. It just occurred to me-a little late-that I should have considered whether or not she had a man in her life. Youve seen her. Hard to believe there arent man friends in that picture. And if it were my woman who disappeared from sight, Id have raised hell and the National Guard and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the BBC-
I get your drift, sir. Possibly there just arent any personal relationships in her life right now.
Maybe. Maguire kept thumbing through documents. In the meantime, I have a new list of things for you to do. Some of these are going to be fun.
Fun, Henry repeated, and tugged on his ear again.
Fun, Maguire repeated. I need a 1953 MG Mark IV TD here seven days from now.
Seven days?
Red.
Oh, thatll make it easier.
Then I need you to locate a tree house. Not a kids tree house. The kind of tree house where adults could live. I dont care where in the world. I just need one.
That must be on your list of more fun things for me to do, I suspect. Henry inked that in his Moleskine notepad, never blinked.
Smile, Henry. Where else could you possibly work, where you had a job with this kind of diversity?
Nowhere, sir. Theres no doubt in my mind.
All right. NowIll be reachable most of next week, but primarily through my laptop. I can call you back, but I wont have a cell phone turned on, until Im specifically looking for messages, so connection via the internet will be more predictable. Ill be in Europe for the next four or five days-Im not sure of the exact stretch of time. It depends on what shes physically up for. To start off, I want to keep her away from disruptive noise as much as I can.
But she cant hear, sir.
Oh, yeah, she can. She hears too much. Thats the core of the problem, Henry. The point, however, is that I cant give you a complete schedule of where Ill be. I need to see how the next week goes with her. For her. Then some type of pattern should emerge.
You dont need me for that week?
I need you all week. But for projects. Ill catch a ride on the Cochran business jet.
For the first time, Henrys face showed expression. You know I can fly that-
Yes. I know you love flying anything. But I really need someone that I can completely trust on this-someone who can keep their mouth buttoned. Youre one of the few in the universe. This is going to take some major finagling to pull off.
Personally, I think it takes a man whos out of his mind, sir.
Yeah, that, too. You know, Im surprised the sister didnt threaten to sue-
She did, Mr. Cochran. Henry looked alarmed. Didnt I already tell you that?
Youd have gotten around to it. And therell be more problems like that, for darn sure. Dont let it get your liver in an uproar.
I dont drink, sir. My liver is almost never in an uproar. On the other hand- Henry suddenly shot to an upright posture, looking in the doorway.
And there was Carolina, carrying a paperback, a blanket draped over her shoulders, barefoot, looking like a waif.
A waif.
Not a femme fatale. Not a cocky confident woman who knew her way around men and valued her own allure.
A damn waif.
Yet his pulse started slamming as if an alarm just went off.
Chapter Four
Considering that her entire life had turned into a massive, uncontrollable disaster, Carolina couldnt believe how well shed slept.
It was almost noon before she opened her eyes-and then she had to shake the clock, certain it had to be broken.
For the first time in weeks, though, she woke up charged-maybe not ready to climb mountains-but definitely in a hustle to yank on clothes and rush downstairs.
Halfway down the steps, she spotted Maguire sitting at the big table. One look, and her heart caught on a snag of emotion. Everything hed told her last night had echoed in dreams, wild dreams, good dreams, all with the same underlying theme. She wasnt the only kidnappee. Maguire had had his soul kidnapped a long time ago, was stuck with an unpaid ransom just as she was. She had huge things she wanted to say to him today, huge things she wanted to do.
But abruptly she realized he wasnt alone. Another man was standing at the kitchen counter-Henry, she thought his name was. He was the man whod piloted the jet, but also who just seemed a critical employee for Maguire, from everything shed sensed and seen so far. When she called out a cheerful Hello! though, his cheeks flushed like a boys.
Henry might be ultra-shy, but Maguire surged out of his chair as if jet-shot and jogged toward her. Carolina! I was afraid youd gone into a coma. You have to be starved. Or thirsty. Hell, I forgot, you lost your hearing again. Wait two shakes until I grab the netbook-
She didnt sway because of dizziness or illness or anything like that. She was just stepping toward him, trying to make an instinctive calming gesture, when she seemed to trip overnothing. Air. Her own feet. A speck of dust.
Youd have thought shed started a fire. Maguire shouted something to Henry, grabbed her, swept her into his arms and started chugging with her up the stairs.
Maguire- Whether she could hear him or not, she was pretty sure there was nothing wrong with his hearing. Right then, though, he wasnt listening to her or anyone else. He was too busy having a fit and a half.
He charged with her into the bedroom, laid her on the bed as if she were breakable china, put a hand on her forehead while he was scooping covers over her at the same time. At the rate he was going, she was going to be smothered, either from excess heat or the weight of covers. It was pretty darn obvious he thought she was weak and sick and traumatized.
Hells bells, maybe she was all three of those things, but the hysterical-deafness thing was getting beyond exasperating. At that precise moment, all Carolina wanted to do was communicate-that she was okay, that she wasnt in some new state of trauma, shed just clumsily tripped over her own feet.
She didnt set out to kiss him. It was justa kiss seemed a way to halt him in his tracks.
It worked beautifully.
Sort of.
All she did was frame his face in her hands, lift up and press her lips against his for a couple of seconds. That was all it took for Maguire to go from manic-energy machine to statue-still.
There was an unexpected repercussion. Her heart suffered immediate cardiac arrest. With that first contact, her lips seemed to instantly recognize that Maguire was nothing like any man shed ever known. Her whole body knew it a millisecond later.
Shed felt so trapped these last two months, caged so tightly she couldnt seem to free herself. Maguire had inserted himself in the role of her white knight-alias her kidnapper-but that wasnt the man she found herself kissing.
It wasnt a hero who kissed her back.
It was a man who wasnt used to having his cage doors rattled. A man who didnt expect himself torespond. A man who was used to initiating action, to controlling it, but not to ever, ever be on the receiving, unprepared end of it.
Carolina perceived all that on a swoop of sensation. Then other instincts completely took over.
The taste of him was dangerously exotic. Unfamiliar. Her heart bucked as if shed been caught petting a tiger. She saw the flash in his eyes-a flash of alarm, awareness-just as she was closing hers. Shed never experienced it before. That spice of danger. Shed always been impulsive, enthused about taking the unknown road, exploring something different. With special children, she tried anything she could possibly think up, no matter how unconventional, to reach them. But that was about life in general.
It wasnt about men.
Yet when she felt the gruff whiskers on Maguires cheek and neck. Felt the pulse in his throat throb under her touch. Felt the satin-smooth texture of his mouth. Smelled him. His soap, the wood smoke he carried from their fire outside, nothing that yelled of a specific scentexcept that he was male. Five-hundred-percent male.
She didnt know any other five-hundred-percent males. Maybe there werent any. Maybe this was the only male in her particular universe who pushed certain triggers that had never been pushed before, who aroused a cacophony of sensations that she hadnt realized existed before. She didnt think those things. She just sort of feltawash. In him. His presence, his textures, his scent.
He broke free from the kiss connection, reared up his head, looked at her with a frown-a frown darker than a thundercloud. He started to speak, then seemed to remember she couldnt hear, and started to shake his head to communicate that way.